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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

New Apostolic Exhortation: Evangelii Gaudium

Pope Francis has released his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium - the Joy of the Gospel.

Don't rely on the secular press, or even on bloggers to do your work for you. Read it yourself first, thenread the various commentaries. That is my plan. There's always a rush to get the first commentary out for people who won't take the time to read what the Pope says in his own words. Some are good; but some are agenda driven, looking for whatever low-hanging fruit they can find to peddle to a particular audience. Watch one less TV program or give up an hour of social media to read it. Take your time and go through it reflectively. Those commentaries will still be there tomorrow, next week, next month, and well beyond that.

EZ-PDF Reader Recommendation for PDF's

I'll be downloading the exhortation to my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
which runs on Android. I highly recommend EZ-PDF Reader if you have an Android device. A friend sent me a draft of a book he is writing, in PDF form, and it is the first time I have tried using the mark-up features. It didn't take me long to figure out how to write notes (granted, easy on the Galaxy which makes use of a stylus), add text boxes for longer notes, highlights, underlines, strike-outs, etc. Then, there is a list with all of those things you add so you can navigate back to them for reading, editing, or deleting. I'll be able to send my thoughts and questions back to him as they came on the fly while reading. I highly recommend paying the few bucks they charge for the pro-edition. I got it after trying it free.

I know there is a version for iPad, but users rate it lower (3 stars out of 5 versus 4.5 stars out of 5 for Android), probably due to some bugs. But, perhaps try the free version if you have an Apple device.

UPDATE:

Using the mark-up tool in EZ PDF Reader Pro and the Galaxy Note 10.1 stylus, I was able to copy this text into an image. It is a quote from near the beginning, on page 3. This is not the latest 10.1, which has even better features. The small stylus has a button on the side and when you press that in while pressing down, you can draw any shape around something on the screen and it grabs an image. It then gives you a number of things to do from saving to sharing.

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Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron

St. John of the Cross

Dark Night of the Soul (2.2:3)...

"...the devil causes many to believe in vain visionsand false prophecies; and strives to make them presumethat God and the saints are speaking with them; and they often trust their own fancy. And the devil is also accustomed, in this state, to fill them with presumption and pride, so that they become attracted by vanity and arrogance, and allow themselves to be seen engaging in outward acts which appear holy, such as raptures and other manifestations. Thus they become bold with God, and lose holy fear, which is the key and the custodian of all the virtues; and in some of these souls so many are the falsehoods and deceits which tend to multiply, and so inveterate do they grow, that it is very doubtful if such souls will return to the pure road of virtue and true spirituality."